if your heart can handle it
by sharoncarters
Summary: After her parents die in a car accident, Sharon Carter moves from New York City to live with her Aunt Peggy in Virginia, in her parents' home town. She never imagines that she'll actually grow to like it there.
i love spring break! happy sharon carter appreciation month! this fic is loosely inspired by both gilmore girls and friday night lights. as you may know, high school aus are my favorite things to write ever. hope you like it!

* * *

I've been broke, I've been used, can't take another go 'round honey  
It's gonna take a little time, you know, the right kind of loving  
If you ain't in any kind of hurry  
Well, baby that's the least of my worries  
Now I've gone and laid it all out there  
If I'm gonna start, guess I better start somewhere  
\- If Your Heart Can Handle It, Chris Carmack and Aubrey Peeples

It's a disgustingly hot day in mid-August when Aunt Peggy's car pulls up to Sharon's brand new house. Sharon takes one look at it and knows that she'll never learn to fit in there.

Ignoring its stark contrast to her parents' old apartment in Manhattan, it's just so... _cute_. Unbearably so. Sharon takes in the flowers planted in the front yard, the wraparound porch, the distinct lack of loud noises and civilians shouting, and wonders where the hell her _real_ Aunt Peggy went. You know, the one that used to work for the government and kick ass on a daily basis, _not_ this suburban housewife.

Her aunt had rambled on the entire car-ride, telling Sharon all about her new home in Nowheresville, Virginia, how "absolutely lovely" all the neighborhood kids are, and how happy she is to have Sharon staying with her. She doesn't look like a different Aunt Peggy, that's for sure. She still has the same accent that Sharon remembers from when she was younger, and the same unapproachable, almost royal air about her, even though her hair is slightly grayer than Sharon remembers. But she's definitely acting like a completely different person than Sharon had known before she hit puberty.

Uncle Gabe is waiting on the front porch for them, and Sharon cringes when he walks up to the car with a huge smile on his face, offering to carry her bags inside.

"No thanks, I think I can manage," Sharon says as she peels her sweaty thighs off of the leather seat, trying to grin back just as sweetly. The smile feels foreign on her face, and probably comes off as more of a grimace than she was going for. Gabe looks over at Peggy and Sharon catches her aunt shake her head a little. If there's anything she can't stand, it's adults having private conversations about her behind her back.

Unfortunately, that's all that has been happening to her since her parents died. "Poor girl" this, and "What are we going to do with her?" that, as if Sharon wasn't in the room, day after day after day. It's like she's become invisible simply because she doesn't have two older people speaking on her behalf anymore.

Her hands itch for a cigarette, a bottle of Scotch, something to do. Anything. She doesn't like being bored now, not as much as she used to. Not since some asshole smacked her parents' car off the fucking road.

Sharon shakes the thoughts away, lugging her bags into Peggy's equally cute living room and trying to keep her face neutral. She's been told that her smiles look like she has dead bodies hidden in her basement, and that was even _before_ her parents died. She's not completely sure what the rest of her expressions look like, but despite everything, she doesn't want to make a completely horrible first impression. Even though she's most likely already blown it, as tends to happen with every other event in her life.

Like the time she had fallen off her motorcycle the first time she'd ridden it, or how she couldn't make a single friend in high school because she was shit at telling people what they wanted to hear.

But Aunt Peggy's the only family she has left. Sharon has to at least _try_.

Sharon doesn't really know what to do with herself, though, and ends up sitting down on the couch, awkwardly, playing with her lighter. The monotonous clicking sound of it grounds her; keeps her thoughts away from the accident, how her parents' bodies looked when she was brought in to examine them at the morgue. She was their only remaining relative, and now she

and Aunt Peggy are the only two Carters left.

"When did you start smoking?" Aunt Peggy asks, walking over to Sharon with an eyebrow raised, not judging but not completely approving either. Sharon shrugs.

"When did you completely revamp personalities?" she throws back, and Peggy's other eyebrow joins the first somewhere in the middle of her forehead. So much for that first impression.

"I'm sorry?"

"You heard me. I used to _idolize_ you. What happened?" Sharon tries to keep the edge out of her voice, but it's not working. She's lost her parents, her home, her friends, and now it feels like she's lost her aunt too.

Peggy used to bring Sharon nerf guns as Christmas presents. She was the woman that taught her how to shoot a gun; how to properly punch someone. And now she has a fucking tree in her living room. It's a goddamn _ficus_.

Peggy says nothing. Sharon seethes.

"Why don't you go down to the grocery store and buy something to drink with dinner," her aunt offers instead, after a few tense seconds of silence. She fishes a few bills out of her pockets. "The store is a few blocks down the street and to the left, it's impossible to miss."

Sharon takes the money out of her aunt's hands, feeling awful but not entirely sorry. She feels like she has a right to know what she's been missing all these years. There's no way that Peggy could've changed that much in the time that Sharon's been living in New York, but then again, life hasn't been going according to plan much lately, anyway.

* * *

Sharon finds the store easily. It's bigger than she's used to, and there's even a greeter at the door. She'd passed a playground and a tennis court on the way there, and she doesn't think she's ever seen so many suburban moms in her entire life. She feels distinctly out of place in her all black wardrobe amongst all of the colors, and the sun is making her tank top stick to the center of her back.

She wanders around the shelves, vaguely browsing the liquor section. She toys with the idea of stealing a bottle just to spite Aunt Peggy. Sharon's not four years old anymore, she doesn't have to pretend like her aunt is some kind of saint. And it's not like Peggy said _specifically_ which drink to get, so Sharon technically wouldn't be breaking any rules.

Sharon abandons the idea when she sees one of the workers glancing warily in her direction. Her fake ID wouldn't work here anyway. Everyone probably knows that she's moved in by now. That's how small towns work, right? She lazily makes her way over to the other side of one of the shelves and picks out a large bottle of iced tea, letting her boots click purposefully on the floor. She never said she wasn't dramatic, okay?

The guy at the register smiles politely at her when she plops it down on the counter. "That all?" he asks, and she nods, pulling out the bills that Peggy had given her. He studies her a little too long as he rings up the drink. She glances at his name tag: Sam. "You new in town?" he wonders, and she lets out a small "mhm" as an answer. She's not feeling too talkative after what happened back at the house.

"You coming to the high school in the fall?" he tries again when he hands back her change, and Sharon's finally had enough. She shoves her sunglasses up onto the top of her head and glares at him.

"Have a nice day," she says, pointedly ignoring his question, grabbing the stupid iced tea off of the counter, and stomping away from the register. She knocks into someone on the way out, a solid chest and a glimpse of blonde hair, and stumbles slightly as she looks up and makes eye contact with him. He looks annoyingly confused, but she can't be bothered to care and doesn't apologize. It's not the nicest thing she's ever done in terms of her interactions with other people, but the overall effect works, and she does sort of feel better after she's done it.

* * *

Dinner isn't a disaster — that would be overstating it. It's just… uncomfortable. Sharon doesn't feel like offering up any information about her life, and Aunt Peggy isn't helping much, either. So that just leaves her Uncle Gabe to fill in all of the gaps in conversation, and he's not really the greatest conversationalist. He talks about the football team he's coaching, and it's so unbelievably small town that Sharon would rather talk about her dead parents.

Her Aunt Peggy is apparently a teacher at the _only_ high school in town, too, which is all kinds of weird, considering Sharon's starting there in a month. She doesn't need to be embarrassed on a daily basis as well as annoyed at home.

Gabe also mentions something about a diner, which Sharon perks up slightly at. If she can get coffee somewhere besides Peggy's it'll give her an excuse not to hang around. And she sort of misses Starbucks, even though it was a constant source of ridicule back home.

When all the food (which is actually pretty decent, considering her aunt cooked it—Aunt Peggy never used to be good at cooking before; honestly, what kind of alien has taken over her body) is gone, Sharon's forced into washing the dishes.

Her aunt is silent for a while, drying the dishes while Sharon cleans, but Peggy's used to speaking her mind and she obviously doesn't intend on stopping now. "People change, Sharon," she starts, and Sharon rolls her eyes in response.

"That's bullshit. What kind of person just gives up everything that they used to love? And for a _guy_? You always taught me better than that."

"Look at me, Sharon," Peggy snaps, and Sharon lifts her eyes from the plate that she's washing to meet her aunt's fiery ones. That's more like the woman she remembers. "I love Gabe, and he had nothing to do with my decision to leave MI6. There are some things that you can't live with, and some burdens that become to heavy to bear. I'm still the same person I've always been, and the fact that you can't see that is what troubles me the most."

Sharon looks away, tears pricking the corners of her eyes. She doesn't even know what to think. Everything's so fucked up, so ruined. All she wanted was to live with her Aunt Peggy, the one that used to tell her crazy stories about missions and bring her souvenirs from all over the world. She was allowed to want one thing to stay the same, wasn't she? That was all she wanted. Just one thing to feel familiar when everything was turning to shit around her.

Aunt Peggy doesn't say anything when Sharon drops the plate she's been holding back into the sink and runs upstairs.

* * *

The next day Sharon wakes up to chanting outside her window and her head immediately starts pounding. She rolls over, practically falling out of bed, and stumbles over to the window to peek through the blinds.

She looks out and spots the source of her annoyance: a group of teenagers, mostly boys and a few girls, all jogging in place on the front lawn. She spots grocery store Sam among them, _and_ the guy she'd run into. _Fucks sake_ , it really was impossible to avoid people in places as small as this. Sharon takes a deep breath, rubbing her temples with her fingers. She thinks she hears the word "hydra" being said, but can't make it out in between her headache and the haze of being half asleep.

Everyone in this town _has_ to be on drugs, there's no other explanation for it. Sharon stomps down the stairs and throws open the front door, crossing her arms over her bra-less chest. She crosses her bare legs, only covered in tiny shorts, somewhat self-consciously. She still can't believe how hot it is this close to fall. It's not like she moved _that_ many states over.

There's nothing she can do about it now, though. The door's already open. She tries throwing the group of teenagers her meanest glare, but they keep bobbing up and down, intensifying her headache. She hears Uncle Gabe and Aunt Peggy walking up behind her, and swears that this group of kids had gotten this move from a TV show. There's no way people in real life actually do shit like this.

"What is it exactly that you're chanting that couldn't wait until," Sharon checks her phone for the time, " _after_ seven fucking AM in the morning? What's a 'hydra'?" she snaps, irritated and bedraggled. She hasn't woken up before noon a single day this summer, and she sure as hell is going back to sleep after this. She only has about a week of summer left, and she's going to make it last.

"Well, you see," a smug looking boy with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail starts to explain to her, "a hydra is a mythical creature with—"

Sharon cuts him off, unimpressed. "I know what a hydra is, you muppet with arms, but you obviously weren't using it in that context."

His features are unreadable for a second before they slide into a large grin. "I like her."

Blonde guy elbows him in the stomach while seamlessly keeping up his form, but he ignores it, winking at Sharon instead. She rolls her eyes.

"Captain Rogers," Uncle Gabe says, ignoring the first guy's remarks. He's obviously like that all the time, which makes Sharon pray to whatever god is out there that she doesn't share any classes with him once school starts. "What's the special occasion?"

"Mr. Jones," the blonde starts, not once losing his footing, "the team and I just wanted to show you how pumped we are to crush Mount Clair next weekend. We won't let you down." Her uncle nods, and Sharon tries and fails to hide a snort behind one of her hands. She's never heard anyone call Gabe "Mr. Jones" before, except her Aunt Peggy when she's feeling frisky, and that was something that Sharon's been trying to erase from her memory for a long time.

The blonde's eyes flick over to her but he doesn't say anything.

"Get back to training," Uncle Gabe tells them all, and Sharon rolls her eyes again before turning around to head back to bed. She hears them all shout "Yes, Coach!" before they leave. Idiots.

* * *

Sharon decides to head to the diner before the first day of school, knowing that there's no way that she'll survive a day filled with ice-breakers and introductions without at least five cups of coffee in her system. The sign simply reads "Stark's", and she tries to ignore any and all thoughts she has about Tony as she makes her way inside.

She hasn't seen her old best friend since they were children. He'd briefly made an appearance at her parent's funeral, but that had been months ago. He was off in college, or maybe even starting at his father's old company for all Sharon knew. They weren't as close as they used to be when they were kids.

Spotting an empty seat at the counter, Sharon makes her way through the hoards of people (honestly, it's barely even eight yet, and the place is _packed_ ) and takes a seat, ringing the bell next to the register.

The guy at the front whose back had been to Sharon turns around and she freezes in place. His eyes widen when he sees her, dropping the rag that he'd been wiping his hands on. "Holy shit," he says with a laugh, bending over to reach for the rag. He drops it on the counter, shaking his head in shock, and makes his way towards her.

"Sharon Carter," he says with a laugh, reaching out to pull her into a hug. Sharon is still frozen, unable to respond, and sits there stiffly while Tony pulls away to look at her, still holding her arms. "What are the odds?" he asks her, a blinding smile illuminating his features.

Sharon blinks a few times, trying to understand what's happening. Tony rambles on. "I mean, I knew you were in town, but I didn't really think we'd see each other, you being in school and all—"

"Tony," she interrupts him, finally able to form words, "what are you doing here?" Sharon watches his expression change, his eyebrows furrowing as he makes his way back around the counter.

"Coffee?" he asks, and Sharon nods, trying to hold back everything she's feeling. Seeing Tony has brought back everything about her parents' death in technicolor. His parents had died in a similar way. Sharon couldn't have been more than four years old when it happened, but she remembers it like it was yesterday. Her mother dressing her in a black dress, Aunt Peggy tying her then-blonder hair back with a matching black bow, holding Tony's hand in her own small one as he cried. And then Tony showing up at her own parents' funeral, doing the same for her. It was too much.

She grabs the coffee cup the second he sets it down in front of her and chugs, ignoring the way that it burns her tongue on the way down. Tony leans down on his forearms in front of her, taking a deep breath.

"After I finished school I got a call from one of my dad's old friends," he begins, and Sharon swallows another mouthful of coffee. "He said that if no one was going to renovate the place," Tony gestures around them, "they were either going to sell or demolish it. It was a bit after your parents—" he coughs, probably noticing Sharon's expression, and skips forward. "I just couldn't give it up, you know? This is where everything started. Where we used to live before dad made it. Too many memories."

He finishes, laughing awkwardly and running his hands over his face. "So, uh, yeah. That's the story, I guess." They look at each other for another thirty seconds of silence, and then Sharon pushes her empty cup to the side and leans across the counter to hug him again, for real this time.

"It's so nice to see you," she whispers into his shirt, trying to swallow the lump in her throat.

Tony rubs her back, making Sharon feel more at home than she's felt in the last year. "You too, kid. You too."

The bell on the front door of the diner rings, signifying another customer, and Sharon flinches away from Tony, laughing a bit at her own jumpiness. She turns around absently to see who it is, and makes eye contact with "Captain Rogers" from the other day. He gives her and Tony a weird look, causing Sharon to swivel around to look back at Tony.

"Can I get a large, super emphasis on 'large' coffee to go, please?" she asks him, and Tony chuckles, reaching for the coffee pot.

"Not a huge fan of the town's golden boy, are we?" he asks her, and Sharon shrugs, reaching for her bag.

"Not when he wakes me up at eight AM, I'm not," Sharon banters back with an exaggerated eye roll, watching the blonde make his way to the register. Tony hands her a to-go cup the second the other boy comes up to the counter, and Sharon jumps out of her seat.

"I'll come back later," she tells Tony, pointedly ignoring the way football boy is looking at her. "Much to discuss, we have," she says with a grin, and Tony raises his eyebrows at her.

"Until later, young Padawan."

* * *

"You have a girlfriend," Sharon repeats in shock, looking back and forth at the two of them in the now empty diner, hours after she's done with school.

The girl standing in front of her is nowhere near Tony's type. Even when she was younger, Sharon wasn't clueless as to what Tony was doing with his endless parade of blonde-haired, large-breasted "friends" up in his room every week. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course, but still. This girl, "Pepper" as Tony had introduced her, "Virginia" as she'd introduced herself, was a shock to the system.

Maybe that's why Sharon had taken an immediate liking to her. Pepper was beautiful, funny, and best of all, she called Tony out on his shit. She was refreshing.

"Why is that so hard to believe," Tony whines, looking over to where Pepper is pouring Sharon a cup of coffee, bless her wonderful soul.

"Maybe it's because you only learned how to do your own laundry right after I moved in," Pepper teases, and Sharon snorts into her newly acquired coffee mug.

"That sounds more like him," Sharon giggles, and Pepper throws an arm around Tony's shoulders, teasingly pinching his left cheek. Tony rolls his eyes, moving his face out of Pepper's reach.

"You two are the meanest women I know," he grumbles, and they both roll their eyes.

"That's why you love us," Sharon decides, smiling at Pepper. Finally, two normal people in this town full of weirdos.

* * *

It takes Sharon a week to get into her first fight.

But, in her defense, the other guy started it. She's totally minding her own business, trying to find her English class in a sea of obnoxious white and black, which are apparently the school's colors. They never needed a good reason to dress up here, she realized quickly, and this particular day it was some type of homecoming promotion or other.

Sharon didn't really care. She'd skipped her first couple of English classes, mostly because she knew a friend of Aunt Peggy's taught it, and she wasn't really in the mood to be judged, or worse, placed on any sort of pedestal.

She's still wandering the halls after the late bell rings and a voice forces her to look up from her schedule.

"Hey, blondie!" The guy calls, leaning against a locker in the most obnoxious, stereotypical way that Sharon has ever seen in her life.

Sharon rolls her eyes and keeps looking around, trying to keep her cool. The guy is fit and obviously full of himself, not unlike the ones she'd started hanging around after her parents had died. Still, there was something sinister about him, in the way that he stared at her for a little too long; the weird smile on his face. Her hands itch to do something and she searches for her lighter, only to remember that Peggy had taken it when the school called and explained to her that Sharon had been cutting class.

"What're you in such a rush for?" he asks, and Sharon spins around, realizing that the classroom numbers at this end of the hallway are higher than the one she's looking for. "Hey, bitch, I'm talking to you! You're just like that slutty aunt of yours, goddamn." And that does it. Sharon does a complete one-eighty, stalks up to the guy, and punches him right in his awful mouth. It doesn't hurt. She's been in fights before, and besides, Peggy had taught her to throw a proper punch before she had even hit puberty.

The guy stares at her for a second, in shock and clutching his jaw, before he lunges at her.

It goes downhill from there. Students start milling about when Sharon shoves him up against the locker he's leaning on, a crowd forming, and Sharon's almost got the pig in a chokehold between her thighs before she sees blonde guy from the grocery store, Rogers, running over to try and break them up. She almost punches him, too, her vision gone red with rage, but he just places his hands under her arms and hauls her away.

"I didn't ask for your help," she snarls, yanking her arms out of his grasp and glaring at him. "I can handle myself."

"I can see that," he answers her, looking completely calm despite having inserted himself between two very pissed off people and hauling Sharon away like she weighed nothing. "But violence really shouldn't be the answer."

"Bite me," Sharon responds, very maturely, before she turns on her heel and marches down the hallway and out the front entrance before anyone can stop her.

* * *

She gets detention once a week for an entire month. Aunt Peggy's not happy, considering that she now has to stay after school even longer so that she can drive Sharon back to her place after, and for the simple fact that Sharon was even fighting in the first place.

Sharon doesn't have the heart to tell Aunt Peggy the reason why she punched the guy in the first place. She's not a hero. She just hates douchebags and is sick of them always getting what they want.

Just seeing him clenching his jaw and then flinching from pain every time she walked by him was satisfying enough, worthy of having detention for the rest of the school year. It wasn't a big deal to Sharon, anyway. It's not like she had anything better to do, or that there were any interesting things to do in this shitty town, anyway.

On top of the detentions, though, Sharon's English teacher, one Mr. Sousa, pulls her aside one day after class a week after the fight.

"I think you need a tutor, Sharon," he starts, his face kind but concerned, maybe even disappointed. Sharon rolls her eyes in response. She doesn't need pity, and she's sick of everyone walking on eggshells around her. So she's a disappointment, big fucking deal. She wishes people would just let it go.

"I'm not stupid," she tells him, and the man's eyebrows raise.

"I'm not saying you are. But your results on the last two reading quizzes we've had in class aren't really helping your case," Sousa replies, and Sharon lets out a loud, exaggerated sigh.

"Maybe that's because I haven't _read_." She says it like, _duh, why should I care_?

"Look, Sharon. I know you're going through a hard time, and I've overlooked your abundance of absences since the beginning of the school year. But it's either get a tutor, or fail this class and subsequently fail to graduate. Your choice." Sharon huffs a bit, but grabs the form he's holding out to her anyway.

"Whatever."

* * *

" _Shit_ , sorry," Sharon gasps as she runs into a body for the second time in as many months as she's been in town. She really needs to start looking where she's going. In her defense, though, her eyes had been glued to that stupid tutoring form Sousa had given her.

She was smart. She didn't _need_ tutoring. School was boring and she was miles ahead of the other students. So what if she didn't do the stupid reading. Aunt Peggy would just have to deal. Sharon shoves the form into her back pocket and leans down to grab the stuff that she'd dropped that's intermingling with another pile of dropped books. She finally takes the time to look at who it is that she'd actually bumped into, and comes face to face with Rogers.

"We have to stop meeting like this," he says, smiling genuinely at her as he sorts through their things on the ground, making Sharon stop in confusion. He's being _nice_ to her.

"Uh, hi," she says dumbly in response, unable to form words. She glances at the copy of _The Importance of Being Earnest_ that he snaps up, searching for something to say. "Is that for class?" she asks him as they stand up, and he shakes his head.

"No, it's… just for fun," he answers her. Sharon nods her head. "But you might know that if you came to class more," he jokes, and Sharon narrows her eyes at him.

"Why do you care if I come to class?" she asks him, and his eyes widen in embarrassment.

"I mean, I don't care. Not that you're… not someone that someone else could care about, hypothetically. Just that _I_ don't care. But not in a mean way." Sharon tilts her head at him, amused. He stutters a bit, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm your tutor. That's how I know. That you're not coming to class, I mean." Sharon grins teasingly at him, widening her eyes a bit, like, "is that so?".

"Thanks for helping me pick up my stuff…" Sharon trails off. She doesn't even know the guy's first name.

"Steve," he adds, pointing towards himself, and Sharon nods.

"Steve." She starts to walk away, one hundred percent decided on skipping her next class (Chemistry, gross), when Steve calls out to her.

"Are you going to come to tutoring?" he asks her, and Sharon shrugs, not missing a beat.

"We'll see," she calls back.

* * *

"How's tutoring?" Aunt Peggy asks out of the blue a week or so after Sharon's bump-in with Steve in the hallway. She hasn't been going, obviously, but it's clear that Aunt Peggy already knows that Sharon hasn't been going, or she wouldn't have asked.

She rolls her eyes at her aunt and doesn't bother answering the question, because Peggy's tone is so obvious that she knows it's not worth it.

"Who told you?" Sharon asks with a sigh instead, and Aunt Peggy tries and fails to conceal a smile:

"Steve's a bad liar."

Sharon looks up from the book she's reading and turns to her aunt. "Since when are you so chummy with Steve?" she asks Peggy, and her aunt gives her a stern look.

"Don't avoid the question, Sharon."

"Don't ask questions you already know the answers to, Margaret."

Peggy lets out a puff of air. "It's for your own good, Sharon. I only asked Daniel to—"

"Wait, _you_ asked— I cannot believe—" Sharon takes a deep breath, attempting to compose herself. "I don't need your help, Aunt Peggy, okay? I don't need anyone's help. Just stay out of it." There. Sharon shoves a bookmark into her book and stomps up the stairs, infuriated.

She grabs the bottle of cheap wine that she's been hoarding in her dresser and decides that she needs to get completely trashed tonight. Maybe she'll even blast _My Chemical Romance_ to piss Peggy off.

* * *

That night, when she thinks Peggy and Gabe are asleep, Sharon sneaks down the stairs, mind set on getting out the house as fast as possible. It isn't until she's three quarters of the way down, slightly tipsy for the bottle of wine and therefore less observant than normal, does she hear the whispers.

Sharon tiptoes down the rest of the stairs and makes her way closer to the living room, where a single candle is flickering. She hides herself behind the coat rack that's near the front door and leans close to the wall so that she can hear what's happening.

"—have to tell her," Uncle Gabe is saying. Sharon hears a soft rustle, maybe Aunt Peg shaking her head.

"She's not ready. She's just lost Harrison and Amanda, how do you think she'd react if she had to deal with this, too? I have a hard enough time getting her to behave as it is. "

"Peggy, you're _sick_. You have to tell her before it's too late. She needs as much time with you as possible." Sick? Sick how? Sharon's stomach churns. Her heart is pounding so loud that she wonders why her aunt and uncle haven't heard it yet.

"Gabriel, just let it go. Please?" Sharon hears Aunt Peggy plead. She's never heard her aunt sound so tired before.

"Peggy, I love you, but I can't just let this go. You have Alzheimer's—" Sharon's heart drops into her stomach. She doesn't stick around to hear the end of the sentence. Instead, she quietly runs into the kitchen, searching for more alcohol, and then bolts outside.

* * *

"Go away," is the first thing Sharon says when she sees him. Steve raises his eyebrows and tucks his hands into the pockets of his hoodie, but doesn't do what she asks.

Sharon takes a deep breath and sits up. She's been laying in the middle of the empty tennis courts that she'd found about a week ago, when she got sick of Aunt Peggy and Uncle Gabe's worried looks. It's in a nice, secluded area, and Sharon needs to be alone right now more than anything.

She still hasn't wrapped her head around what she'd heard in the living room hours ago. It feels like it's been years, instead. Her head pounds, and she's probably going to throw up any second. Steve Rogers is quite literally the _last_ person she wants to see right now.

"What are you doing out here?" he asks, and Sharon rolls her eyes, reaching for the bottle of vodka she's been soaking up for however long she's been out here.

"I could ask you the same thing," she spits, "but I won't bother. It's quiet and I like it. So maybe you should leave."

Steve sits down next to her instead.

"Is getting drunk the only thing you like to do for fun?" he asks her, and Sharon lets out a sharp, affronted laugh.

"You are absolutely the last person I wanted to see tonight. I don't need a fucking lecture," she snaps. Steve shakes his head.

"You're allowed to be upset, you know," he says, not responding to her outburst. "Alcohol won't fix your problems."

"You're one to talk, pretty boy. What problems could you possibly have? Did you make two touchdowns instead of five in the last game?" Sharon shakes her head again, staggering to her feet. "I don't need this."

"Sharon, you have to face it sometime. You can't just keep wishing all of your problems away. And, just to remind you, I lost someone close to me too. You're not special." She's practically seeing red at this point. He has no idea what she's going through, least of all what happened tonight.

"You—" Sharon takes a deep breath, trying to control her rage. "You don't know a _single_ thing about me. I can do whatever I want, and I don't need your permission to do it. So why don't you go live your perfect life and leave me alone, okay? _God_." She takes a few steps towards the exit and then backtracks.

"And you know what else?" she snarls, stomping back over to where he's still sitting, "Where do you get off, acting like my therapist or something? What right do you have to give me advice? I never asked for your help!"

"I just—" he stops short, searching for something to say.

"You just _what_?"

"It sucks seeing you upset, okay?" he snaps, and Sharon freezes. "Especially because I've been through exactly the same thing and I know how it feels. And I think that you're better than this. I don't understand why you're drinking and partying your life away."

"Well, it's _my_ life. So it doesn't really matter what you think."

* * *

"Look," Sharon starts before she even sits down, and with the full intention of booking it out of the library in a few seconds. Steve looks up from the book he's reading, perched on a library chair with all of his study materials out and ready to go, looking entirely too comfortable, and raises an eyebrow. God, she wishes he were uglier. That would make this a lot easier. She doesn't acknowledge what happened between them the other night.

"Just because Aunt Peggy convinced her teacher friend that I need a tutor, doesn't mean I actually do. I'm doing perfectly fine on my own, so let's just not and say we did, okay?"

Steve carefully places his book down on the wooden table, his lips curling upwards in what Sharon assumes is amusement. If not, she'd say he was attracted to her, even though she's been nothing but entirely rude to him since the moment they'd met. She doesn't really know which one is worse in their current situation.

She's used to getting whatever guy she wants and then throwing him out afterwards. She'd feel guilty if the guys didn't know exactly what they were getting into, but back in New York they all did. It just didn't matter to them. Sharon gets the feeling that Steve's the type of guy that things matter to, and she's not in the right head space to deal with that right now.

"Okay," is all he says, and that makes her double-take.

"Okay?" she asks, incredulously, and Steve shrugs. "You're just going to let me leave?"

"I'm not the one that's going to fail. No one is forcing you to be here, Sharon. You can do what you want." He picks up his book again, still looking at her. That was the first time he's said her name. It feels… like something.

That was surprisingly easier than she had been expecting. Sharon was all set and ready for a fight, and he's just letting her go. "Huh. Well, thanks. See you around, I guess." She falters a bit as she walks back through the library doors that she'd walked through to get there, struggling not to turn back and look at him. She wants to know if he's looking at her, but doesn't want him to know that she wants to know.

After being numb for so long, the sudden spark inside of her chest feels foreign, hard to explain. Her head hurts. She needs a beer.

* * *

Aunt Peggy's out sick that following Monday, meaning that Sharon doesn't have a ride home after school. Which wouldn't be a problem, normally. She doesn't mind walking. But the sky decides to open up and piss all over her day, leaving Sharon stuck under the awning in the front of the school's entrance, hoping that it'll stop raining for at least five minutes so that she can sprint back to Peggy's. The walk back wouldn't be that far on a normal day, ten minutes tops, but she'd ignored her aunt's warnings about the rain earlier and had forgone an umbrella. Plus, she wasn't wearing a coat and just didn't particularly feel like getting soaked. Sue her.

And now she was sitting on a bench, paying the price for her early-morning, caffeine-less stubbornness. Sharon buries her head in her arms, groaning, and rests it on her knees afterwards. She can see the football team practicing in the field near the school, but she's never really been into football, nor does she know or care about the rules, so it's not particularly entertaining.

Sharon turns to her phone for amusement, but about fifteen minutes into blankly staring at it and searching for something to do, it dies, so Sharon has to go back to watching the football team.

 _Oh my god_ , she thinks, _I'm actually going to die of boredom_. _Who knew that that was actually possible?_

The football team finishes practice sometime later, what feels like ten hours, give or take, and Sharon spots a familiar blonde head, hair slightly darker from the rain, walking in her direction. She scopes out somewhere to hide but comes up empty, because the school's closed by now and there's a distinct lack of bushes in the area. Then she takes out her dead phone, trying to seem like she has something really important going on.

Steve makes his way over, anyway, when he spots her.

"Sharon?" he asks, which makes her roll her eyes because yes, it's her, who else could she be? It's not like she has a twin. "What are you doing out here?" he asks, and she sighs, shimmying her phone back into her pocket.

"Contemplating suicide," she says with a fake smile, and his eyebrows scrunch together. "Kidding," she clarifies, when he doesn't say anything in response.

"Yeah, I got that."

Sharon bites her lip, hating that he always seems so unaffected by everything. It's freaking raining. Not that that's the end of the world, but it is at least _mildly_ inconvenient. And he just had to practice in it. "I actually, um. Don't have a car." For multiple reasons, including the fact that she never needed one back home. "So I'm just waiting for the rain to pass before I go back to Peggy's."

"Do you want a ride?" he asks, and her immediate response is "no". She curses her defensive mouth the second she says it, because she actually would sort of like a ride, even if it is from Mr. Goody-Goody himself. But she said it and now she can't take it back.

"You sure?" he asks again, and Sharon bites her lip, weighing her options. Stay here and wait for the rain to subside, which it didn't look like it was going to anytime soon, or take her chances with pretty boy.

"Okay, fine."

* * *

It's weird sitting in his car, but Sharon tries to not let it get to her. Something about being so close to him is unnerving. She doesn't dwell on it for too long, just throws her bag into the back seat and makes herself at home in the front, kicking her legs up on the dashboard instead.

Steve looks like he wants to say something at that, but instead shakes his head and tries to hold back a smile.

"What?" she asks, crossing her arms. She puts her seatbelt on, something she never used to bother doing before her parents' accident. Steve turns the car on and Sharon flinches, ignoring the way his eyes dart over to her. Her heart stutters every time someone turns their engine on, yet another side effect of that horrible night.

"Natasha does the exact same thing," he says with a chuckle, pointing towards her feet and turning his blinker on. Sharon realizes she hasn't told him her address, but clearly he already knows. She hates small town life. No privacy.

"Natasha…" Sharon pauses. She has no idea who anyone really is, what with the skipping class and not actually caring and all. "Your girlfriend?" she guesses, and Steve makes a sound somewhere in between a choke and a hesitant laugh.

"No, my best friend's. We've been friends for a long time, though, before they started dating. You sure you don't know her? Red hair, short, vaguely angry looking all the time?" Sharon recalls a faint image of a shorter girl among the team that had showed up in front of Peggy's house before school started, shrugging.

"Maybe you guys should meet. You're a lot like her." Sharon snorts, wondering exactly what Steve thinks she's "like". She really wishes her phone wasn't dead. She's no good with small talk. The rain patters down on the car's hood and on each window, and she absently traces designs wither her finger in the window closest to her.

"Sharon," Steve starts, clearing his throat lightly. She drops her hand, turning to look at him. His eyes are focused on the road, ever the rule follower, giving her a chance to study him.

He looks like someone out of another time. A soldier, maybe an old movie star. Someone that everyone would have looked at and admired. Sharon fingers the ends of her own stringy hair, stuffed under a beanie, and wonders for the millionth time why he's being nice to her. She's nobody, an orphan with a bad attitude to boot.

"Hm?" she prompts him when he doesn't continue.

"I just wanted... I wanted to say sorry. About your parents. It must be hard." Sharon blinks a few times. That's not what she was expecting.

"Yeah, well. Everyone's sorry. It won't bring them back." Attack mode, like always. She feels like she doesn't have another switch, always on the hunt, always taking things the wrong way. It's not like she means it, exactly, but that's just the way things come out. It's hard for her to let her walls down.

"I lost my mom a few years ago," Steve adds, and that makes Sharon's heart settle in the pit of her stomach. "So I just… know how you feel." He makes one last turn, pulling into Peggy's driveway. He puts the car in park and turns to look at her. "You're not a bad person, Sharon. Stop trying to make people think you are."

"You have no idea who I am, okay Steve? Just stay out of it." She leans over to grab her bag from the back seat of his car. "Thanks for the ride," she adds as an afterthought, trying not to slam his door closed as she runs back into the house.

* * *

"Jesus Christ!" Sharon shouts, letting out a panicked sound as she turns around from a shelf and finds Steve Rogers lurking near her shopping cart.

What are the freaking odds that she'd (literally) run into Steve Rogers again? In the same grocery store? She doesn't even bother concealing her rage this time.

"Is this, like, a thing? Do you go around grocery stores randomly assaulting people?" Sharon snaps, hastily squatting down to reach for the boxes of cereal that she'd dropped because of his sudden appearance.

When she stands up she swears Steve is full on _blushing_ , of all things, and she's never thought that football players were the type of people to blush. She figured that the one time in the hallway was a fluke. No one could possibly be that bad with girls. His right hand escapes his pocket to rub at the back of his neck, and he clears his throat, trying not to laugh.

Sharon glares at him. Not a one-time thing, apparently. The awkwardness, that is.

"In my defense, there's only the one grocery store in town," he responds, and Sharon bites her lip, trying her hardest not to smile because no matter how awful to him she is, he always seems to be so… _sweet_ in response. It's maddening.

"So you don't deny the sudden and shocking appearances?" she asks with a quirk of her eyebrow, and he genuinely laughs at that, his hand drifting back into his pocket. He rocks forward on his heels a little bit, shaking his head at something.

"What can I say," Steve lets out a small breath, "it's fun to see you thrown off your game."

Sharon wrinkles her nose a bit at that, making her way down the aisle and towards the refrigerators in search of some milk. Steve follows her.

"I do not have a ' _game_ '," Sharon protests as she scans the shelves for what she's looking for. She has to stand on her tiptoes, straining to try and reach the two percent that Aunt Peggy likes. Steve reaches around her, his arm brushing her waist, easily lifting the milk off of the shelf and handing it to her. She tries not to think too much about the way it felt, warm and comfortable and safe.

Steve places the milk in Sharon's cart, turning back to face her. "Oh, you definitely do. The whole 'I couldn't care less, everything sucks' act? I see right through that."

Sharon frowns slightly, narrowing her eyes at him. It doesn't feel like an act. She knows that this isn't the way that she's always been, but ever since her parents have died, it feels like who she is. Caring is risking too much. Caring means losing people, and Sharon doesn't think that she's ready for that to happen to her again.

Doing what she does best, Sharon gets defensive. "I know that you think you have me completely figured out, Mr. Football Star, but, newsflash, you're not as smart as you think you are. So just leave me alone, okay?"

Shoving a shopping cart away from him isn't the dramatic exit that she would've liked to have, but under the circumstances, it'll have to do. When Aunt Peggy asks her what took so long back in the car, Sharon just shrugs and mumbles something about how she isn't used to the layout of the store yet.

* * *

Sharon's strolling down the school hallway after classes have ended, waiting for Peggy to finish up talking to students in her classroom and clean up or whatever it is that high school teachers actually do, no set destination in mind. She's come to the conclusion that even though she's been in Virginia for what's going on three months now, she has no idea where anything in the school is, nor has she been inclined to explore; until now, of course.

She rarely ventures anywhere past where her classes are, not even bothering to learn where the bathrooms are, because high school kids are disgusting and she can hold it until lunch, when all the seniors are allowed off-campus. Not that there's really anywhere to go besides Stark's or the depressingly small McDonald's, but at least she gets some freedom and a chance to relieve herself somewhere that's not a bathroom shared by five-hundred teenage girls. Now that her detention is over, though, she has a lot more free time after school.

While she's paused in the art wing admiring some murals that older students have left on the walls over the years (she's debating whether or not Sarah-Ann and Cathy really did stay "best friends forever!" after 2004), Sharon hears a clatter coming from the art room and decides it wouldn't hurt to investigate. Peggy still hasn't texted her that it's time to leave yet, which isn't surprising considering the line of students (mostly male, the pervs) that line up outside of her door every day when school is over.

Her boots click on the tiled floor as she walks over to peek around the door, stopping when she spots something completely unexpected.

"Are you lost?" she wonders out loud, causing an annoyingly adorable, paint-covered Steve Rogers to startle and drop the brush that he's holding when he catches her eye.

"I could ask you the same question," he says, picking up the brush as she walks over. Sharon hops up on the table he's working at, idly swinging her feet. Steve wipes his hands on his apron, furrowing his brow as he looks at his painting. There is a distinct lack of acknowledgment of the conversations that they've had recently, but Sharon's totally fine with that. She's good at avoiding uncomfortable situations.

She turns her head to look at his painting and lets out a sound of surprise.

Football star and captain has _serious_ skill, who knew? The painting is rough (he's obviously just started), but it's better than anything she could ever do, by far. It's a simple nature scene, mountains behind a large lake or ocean, but it's gorgeous.

"That is actually… _really_ good," she tells him, but Steve's shaking his head when she looks back at him. "Take the compliment," Sharon says with a laugh, ignoring the head shake, "I don't give them out often."

Steve snorts in response but sets his paintbrush down again anyway, glaring at the artwork in front of him. "I don't know," he sighs, tilting his head slightly, trying to see it from a new angle. "I'm just not… feeling it," he says with a small laugh, realizing how cheesy he must sound. "It looks so boring."

Sharon rolls her eyes and jumps off the table, her phone buzzing in her back pocket, signaling that Peggy's most likely ready to go. "Why don't you just try drawing what you _like_?" she suggests as she makes her way out of the room. "You have to like something besides mountains and lakes and football, right?"

His laugh follows her out of the room, and Sharon's unusually cheery when she meets back up with Peggy in her classroom.

* * *

It turns out that the movies weren't lying. Sharon's holding her lunch tray, having ventured into the cafeteria for the first time since school started, and she's absolutely mortified for reasons that she can't explain. She sees Rumlow glaring at her from a table in the left corner and immediately veers right, searching for a place to sit that isn't infested by annoying groups of teenagers. She feels like she's made a horrible, horrible mistake, and contemplates throwing out her lunch and booking it before too many people notice her, until she hears a voice calling her name.

It's Steve, obviously. Sharon's not surprised when she sees him waving her over. He's the only one that's made any kind of effort to speak to her the entire year. He's sitting with supermarket Sam, a couple who Sharon assumes are his best friend and Natasha, and another girl that she doesn't know.

Best friend is the guy that she yelled at over the summer. She hopes he doesn't hold that against her. Oh, god, she yelled at Sam too. _Why am I so angry? Fuck_.

Sharon lets out a tentative "hey" before sitting down, feeling vaguely out of place — not that that's not a normal occurrence. It's basically how she feels every second she spends in this town.

"Hey," Steve answers her, smiling widely. "This is Bucky, Natasha, Sam, and Wanda. Guys, this is Sharon."

She gives them her patented smile-grimace. "Bucky's an interesting name," she starts, trying to make conversation. "Is it short for something?" Natasha's leaning against his chest and the hand that he isn't using to eat is tangled in her hair. It looks so natural, almost like he's not even realizing that he's doing it.

Both Bucky and Natasha smile when her question is asked, Nastaha's more knowing and Bucky's more embarrassed. Natasha answers for him.

"James Buchanan Barnes, actually," Natasha laughs, and Sharon raises an eyebrow.

"Your parents big fans of presidents, are they?" she asks, and Natasha laughs even louder.

"I don't know, were your parents big fans of grandmothers, _Sharon_?" he retorts, and Sharon starts, hand frozen on the way to her mouth. She knows he didn't mean it, and she doesn't blame him. But all of a sudden she feels sick and the room is spinning slightly and all she wants to do is take a nap.

Natasha's eyes widen when she realizes what happened, elbowing Bucky in the ribs so that his arm drops from around her shoulders. Steve reaches for Sharon, but she shoots out of her seat.

"Sorry, I'm just— I have to go. Sorry." She abandons her tray on the table and darts out of the cafeteria, looking for the quickest exit out of the building. Yup, going to lunch was definitely a big mistake. She finally spots a door and starts to make her way towards it, no set destination in mind.

Steve darts out of the cafeteria doors after her, catching up to her quickly on his long legs and placing a hand on her arm to try and stop her from leaving.

"Sharon—"

"Steve, just. Let me go, please?"

"Bucky didn't mean—"

"It's fine, okay? I'm not mad. I just need to… not be here anymore." His hand hasn't left her arm. Sharon doesn't pull away.

"Please just… come back in. We can pretend that it never happened." Steve gives Sharon this killer smile, one that would've made her knees go weak if she had met him any time before… well. Just before. But now all it does is make her ache and want to take a long nap to forget it, maybe drink some beers and pass out and feel nothing for a while, like she did back home for months before the lawyers figured out what to do with her.

"Sorry, I… can't." She tugs free of his hand and turns back around, hating that she feels this pang in her chest that she can't explain. She walks home and curls up in bed, letting herself cry for the first time since she's moved in with Peggy.

* * *

"I didn't know you were in this class," is the first thing Sharon says to Bucky when she sits down in History a week later, twenty minutes late and partnerless. There's an odd number of students in the class and they've all paired up for some group project or other, Sharon's not really sure. She hadn't been paying attention the few times she actually came, and today just went and sat where the teacher had pointed.

Unfortunately, the only person left to partner with was James Buchanan Barnes. Go figure. Life never ceases to amaze Sharon at this point, nor does her bad luck.

Bucky shrugs, avoiding her eyes and fidgeting with his pencil. He's chewed off the end of it, she notes, her eyes being drawn to his hands because of the incessant movement. "Maybe if you came to class…" he tries to joke, but trails off.

It's quiet for an amazingly long period of time for a class that only lasts forty minutes until Bucky finally speaks again. Sharon looks up from reading the assignment for the third time.

"Sharon, I… I'm sorry. About what I said. I didn't mean— well. It doesn't matter. I'm just sorry. I remember how Steve was like with his mom, and—"

Sharon cuts him off, smiling in what she hopes is a comforting way. "It's no sweat. Seriously. I was just having a shit day. I'm not even a little bit mad, okay?" He nods, albeit a bit hesitantly. "Let's just get this assignment over with. All of your angst-ing has lost us valuable time." Bucky laughs, genuinely this time, and flips through a few pages of his textbook.

They find what they need and get to work for the last twenty-five minutes of class. Luckily they're getting time to work on it the day after, too, so they'll be done with plenty of time to spare. "You won't leave me hanging, will you?" Bucky asks as they're packing up their stuff, and Sharon rolls her eyes.

"Don't get your panties in a twist, Barnes, I'll be here. I mean, against my own will, but," she shrugs like, "what can you do"? Bucky laughs through his nose.

"Hey, there's a party tonight at Sam's place. His parents are out of town, so. If you wanna stop by, there'll be free booze. Think of the invitation as my last attempt at apologizing, because you are impossible to say sorry to. Steve will be there," he throws in, wiggling his eyebrows at her.

Sharon narrows her eyes at him, considering the offer. She doesn't even want to know what that last comment was about. "Okay, deal. Text me Sam's address?" she asks, and Bucky hands over his phone for her to program her number into.

"Nine PM," Bucky adds as they leave the classroom together, headed down the same direction in the hallway. "It's still crazy to think that there's someone in town that has no idea where anything is. I had to double back a second when you asked me for Sam's address."

"Ha ha," Sharon mutters, smacking him in the stomach. Bucky exaggerates a sound of pain, theatrically rubbing where she'd hit him. Sharon rolls her eyes again. That seems to be her default when it comes to him, not that she minds. Everyone needs a little comic relief in their lives. "Not everyone can grow up in suburbia, running around to each others houses and having a community upbringing," she adds as their paths diverge.

"Yeah, yeah. Go to class, city-slicker," Bucky shouts at her in parting. Sharon enters her next class surprisingly amused, considering that it's AP Calculus. Safe to say she doesn't have as good of a time there as she does in History.

* * *

"You know, there's an entire table covered with drinks just down the hall." Sharon jumps, startled by the sudden voice, and smacks her head against the top of the cabinet that she's been rifling through.

" _Jesus_ ," she hisses, rubbing her head as she turns around to yell at whoever just caused her to have future brain damage.

"Nope, just me," Steve Rogers smirks, completely smug and full of himself, watching Sharon with amusement as she sets down the bottle of Scotch that she was looking for and rubs the back of her head some more.

"Proud of that, aren't you?" she snaps, and he just shrugs, still smiling. "Do you ever get, like, angry?" she asks, slightly tipsy and unable to control her internal filter. She got sick of drinking supermarket beer after about three of them, hence the slightly illegal search that she'd been performing in Sam's kitchen.

Steve raises an eyebrow at her, obviously taking notice. "Are you drunk, Carter?" he asks her, and Sharon shrugs, taking a long swig of the whiskey. It burns as it goes down, distracting her from her thoughts, just like she wanted. She hadn't been planning to go the party. After school was over — the first day that she'd actually went to all of her classes without skipping one — she was in an awful mood, and had only wanted to take a long, long nap, preferably after drinking all of Aunt Peggy's wine and marathoning Star Wars in preparation for the new movie.

Then she'd gotten home and found Aunt Peggy going through old photo albums, and things had just gone downhill from there. It had made her heart do horrible acrobatics inside her chest, so Sharon figured some free booze and alone time wouldn't hurt.

"Keep talking and I will be," she tells Steve, and his smile loses some of its punch.

"Funny."

"Mmm, aren't I always?"

"How's English going?"

"That's a subject change."

"Is it?"

"I'd say so."

"Maybe I just want you to keep talking." Sharon inhales sharply, choking on the gulp of Scotch making its way down her throat. Steve sprints over to where she's standing on the opposite side of the kitchen counter, reaching out to pat her on the back, but Sharon throws her arm out, putting distance between them. She coughs a few more times. Steve's arm stays outstretched, but when she finally stops sputtering he hesitantly puts it down.

"I think that might be a sign that you should slow down a bit," he says, smiling again, and Sharon wants to wring his neck. She tends to get a bit violent when she's drunk.

But then again, she's always violent. Sharon rolls her eyes at him.

"Or what?" she asks him, raising an eyebrow, hating the flirty tone of her voice. He just brings something out in her, something half angry and half… something else.

"I'll have to take it away from you," he teases, reaching for the bottle. Sharon snatches it away, pulling it close to her chest and stumbling back against the marble countertop behind her. Steve steps forward, effectively trapping her between him and the kitchen drawers. This close, Sharon can smell the aftershave that he's put on for the party; can feel his warm breath against her face. It smells like cheap beer, but she can't seem to pull away.

Steve plants his arms on either side of her, and Sharon takes a deep breath. Her heart is racing, and she has to end this. She needs to get out of there, before she does something she'll regret. The cold of the liquor bottle between them is what finally pulls Sharon out of her daze, and she pushes gently against Steve's chest.

"Okay, cowboy, I think it's time for me to leave. Nice, uh… chat," Sharon finishes lamely, patting his chest a little, just to feel the muscles there, and ignoring the look in Steve's eyes as he steps away from her.

She places the bottle on the counter and hears Steve clear his throat behind her. "At least let me drive you home," he starts, but Sharon shakes her head, making her way to the door. Sharon chances a look back at him and their eyes meet.

"Don't want to make it a habit."

* * *

She shows up to tutoring. Sharon likes to confront her problems head on, and Steve Rogers is turning out to be one of the biggest problems she's ever faced, which is saying something. Stupid, boy-next-door, blonde haired asshole. Sharon figures that the more time she spends with him, the more she'll realize that she actually isn't attracted to him one single bit and then she can move on with her life.

He looks so surprised when she plops herself down across from him at the library that she kind of just wants to take a picture to capture the moment forever. For _once_ , he's doing something other than smiling at her, and Sharon is extremely pleased with herself.

Steve puts down _Anna Karenina_ without the bookmark in, clearly still shocked, and Sharon gives him the biggest, most manufactured grin that she's ever given to anyone in her life. It feels good to be a winner.

"It's tutoring time," Sharon says after Steve is quiet for a good thirty seconds, nudging Steve's leg with her foot under the table and making him jump. He awkwardly clears his throat, out of his element, and reaches down to rummage through his bag. Sharon leans against her hand, loving how easy it is to make him squirm.

She hasn't been able to do something like this since New York, and playing with Steve Rogers is infinitely better than being bored. She's having a blast.

"So what is it that we're reading in class?"

Steve looks up from his bag, astonished. "You've been going to class for how many months now?"

Sharon shrugs. "'Going' is a loaded word. I prefer… showing up. I've been showing up to class. Listening; well. That's a whole other story."

Steve lets out a pained laugh. "Okay. Well, uh. We're reading Macbeth now. Quiz on it on Friday."

"Macbeth, which one is that again?"

"You're kidding."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know Shakespeare himself was in the building. Did I offend?"

"You are just—" Sharon widens her eyes slightly at Steve, daring him to finish the sentence. He doesn't. He just shakes his head instead, and Sharon grins in approval.

He explains to her the bare minimum details of the play, and she doesn't tell him that she has read it before, along with most of Shakespeare's works. She likes hearing him talk, and she has a reputation as the town's bad girl to uphold.

It also just feels nice to have someone care enough to explain all this stuff to her, even though he's just doing it to have something to put down on college applications. It takes her mind off of things she'd rather not be thinking about, like her parents, college, the way that Aunt Peggy looks at her like she's a constant source of disappointment, and the illness that she's hiding from Sharon.

When they're finished working through the assigned packets and study materials, Sharon feels energized and aware like she's never felt in class before. Steve is unbelievably smart. In addition to his athletic and artistic skills, Sharon almost feels sorry for the rest of the population for having to exist at the same time as him. Is there anything this guy is _bad_ at?

Steve warns her as they're packing up their stuff that they're going to get more into the symbolism of the play next time they meet, but gets cut off when some papers spill out of his backpack. Sharon reaches down to help him with them, and Steve lets out a desperate sounding "No!" when she gets too close to some loose pieces of paper. That only makes her curious, so she snaps them up before he can stop her.

They're drawings. Of her. Really, really good ones. Profiles, mostly, some of her while she's reading. She's never thought of herself of beautiful before, but these might just be able to singlehandedly change her mind. She looks up at Steve, who's anxiously looking at her, biting his bottom lip.

"You told me to try drawing what I like," he says, and Sharon's stomach does a little flip. She hands the sheets back to him, saying nothing, and they make their way towards the library's exit in silence.

Steve pauses outside the door to the library once they make it there.

"You should come to the game on Friday," he blurts, and Sharon looks at him, pursing her lips.

"Game?" she asks, and Steve rolls his eyes.

"Football, you know. The only thing this town cares more about than buy one, get one sales at the grocery store?"

"Ah, yes. Football. The great American past-time. How could I ever forget? I don't think so, though. Football's not really my thing."

"Okay, well, what's your _thing_?"

Sharon shrugs, turning around and making her way up the stairs towards Peggy's classroom.

"Don't really have one," she says, shrugging her bag into a more comfortable position on her shoulder.

"Oh come on, everyone's good at something."

"Says the star athlete and incredible artist."

"I'm not even that good!" Steve protests, and Sharon shoves tries to shove him into the lockers, but his stupid, well-built form doesn't even budge. "All I'm saying is, just think about it, okay? Natasha's already offered to drive you."

"Okay, fine," she agrees, hating the way that he smiles so genuinely all the time. It's impossible for one person to be so happy. "I'll think about it." They stop outside of Peggy's room.

"I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?" Steve asks, and Sharon nods.

"And tomorrow and tomorrow," she adds while he's walking away, stopping him in his tracks. He spins around, gaping at her in astonishment.

"You _have_ read it!" Sharon just shrugs, leaning back against the lockers and grinning at him. "You are not nearly as awful as you pretend to be, Sharon Carter," he tells her, turning around and walking back down the stairs. Sharon's heart does a quick jump as she makes her way into Peggy's classroom.

* * *

"I think you should get a job," Aunt Peggy says one day after dinner. Sharon practically chokes on the cookie that she's stuffing into her mouth.

"A what?" she manages to cough out, reaching for her glass of milk while her Aunt gives her a disapproving look. Rude.

"Did I stutter?"

"Who's going to give me a job?" Sharon asks, hating the mom-like way Peggy has her arms crossed. It reminds Sharon too much of Amanda. "Everyone hates me here."

"Tony offered to—"

"That scheming little shit! I can't believe this." Sharon reaches for the plate of cookies, ready to drown her sorrows in peanut butter and bad 90's movies back in her room, but Peggy grabs the edge before Sharon can get to it and tugs it out of her reach. "Hey!" Sharon protests, but Peggy just shakes her head.

"Now that your detentions are over with, and your grades have been getting better, I think it's time. You party too much, and don't act like I don't notice," Peggy finishes, glaring sharply at Sharon right as Sharon opens her mouth to protest.

"Do you really think working a minimum wage job is going to make me a better person?" Sharon grumbles, resigned to the fact that she's now going to have to spend her days and nights waiting on the annoying citizens of this town while listening to Tony's lame dad jokes.

"No," Aunt Peggy concedes, "but it'll keep you out of trouble."

"I don't think you know Tony all that well," Sharon mutters, leaning across the table to snatch the cookies back.

* * *

Getting attacked by a giant dog is not the way that Sharon wants to start her first day of work, but the hellhound next door obviously had other plans. Sharon had put off meeting the neighbors long enough. No one lived next door to Peggy's on the left hand side, her house being on the end of the street, but someone did live on the right.

And just from hearing Aunt Peggy's stories about her weird Scandinavian hunk of a mechanic neighbor and his equally as weird, if not annoyingly sweet wife, Sharon had no desire to meet them. She's had enough of the "small town charm" to last her a lifetime, from Sam's weird boss at the supermarket that liked to color-code cereal, to old Mr. Fury that worked at the bookstore. (Although, funnily enough, Mr. Fury was growing on Sharon. He always seemed to stock the exact books she was looking for. Sharon has a feeling that Aunt Peggy is giving him special intel.)

Meeting the Odinsons hadn't mattered for the first few months that she'd been living with Peggy, anyway, because Jane Odinson's research had taken her and her husband away to Europe for an extended trip. However, the slobbering hound currently sprawled on Sharon's chest most likely means that they've returned. What a joy.

Sharon tries to shove the large black dog's wet muzzle away from her face, but that just seems to encourage it, because it barks playfully, straining to lick her face around the arms that she's thrown up in her defense.

"Fenrir!" a deep voice calls, pulling the dog away from Sharon. At least it's obedient.

Sharon sits up on her elbows, sprawled on the grass that Gabe had cut earlier in the day. She'd already been irritated that she had to wake up before ten on a Saturday morning, but this has pushed her over the edge. She glares at the large, male, plaid-wearing figure walking towards her, hoping that he'll get the message.

He doesn't. The man jogs over to where she's sitting, covered in dog drool and ass sore from her sudden fall, and actually _smiles_ at her, offering a hand. Sharon takes it. _Grudgingly_.

"Young Carter!" he greets her, giving his dog some kind of signal that makes it sit down, finally releasing Sharon's t-shirt from its jaws. "Your aunt told me much about you before our trip. Jane!" he calls, turning slightly to address the woman on the front porch. "Come meet our new friend!"

"In a sec, babe!" she yells back, too loud for Sharon's poor brain so early in the morning, "Let me put this equipment away first."

He's still vigorously shaking Sharon's hand, so she pulls it away gingerly, not wanting to offend him but already bored with the interaction. "Mr. Odinson—" she starts, but is quickly interrupted.

"Just call me Thor," he says with another wide smile, making Sharon question what the hell is in this town's water that makes everyone so happy, and why it isn't working on her. And, okay, _Thor_? His parents must have had a serious mythology fascination. Not that she's one to judge. It's miles above her own name.

"Um, Mr. Thor, I'm going to be late for work, so could we continue this later?" Sharon's already edging away before she hears his answer. "It was nice meeting you!" she adds, practically sprinting down the street to Stark's.

* * *

"Coffee," Sharon demands of Tony the second she makes it to work. He raises an eyebrow, ignoring her request and continuing to scrub the counter. Sharon turns to Pepper, hurt and offended, dramatically stomping her foot on the ground.

"Did you see that?" Sharon asks her, feigning indignation, "Completely ignores me. The nerve of some people, I swear."

Pepper, the marvelous woman, abandons the cash register to man the coffee pot. Sharon practically collapses into a seat at the counter, dropping her bag on the ground and inhaling as much liquid as she can in one sip. "Bless you," she says to Pepper, bowing to her. Tony rolls his eyes.

"You're late," he says, as if that excuses his rude behavior.

"You're brushing aside my emotional turmoil. Aren't you even a bit curious to what happened to me this morning to make me late and also require multiple cups of coffee?" she asks him, taking another large gulp.

Tony lets out a theatrical sigh, finally turning towards Sharon. "Well?"

"I was attacked! Mauled, even, by a large beast from hell."

Pepper laughs, back to the register and giving a customer change. "I take it Thor's back in town?"

"Why did no one warn me?" Sharon squeaks, making her way around the counter to refill her mug. "It had to have been the largest dog I've ever seen."

"Yeah, yeah. Get to work, drama queen," Tony chides, slapping Sharon's arm with his towel as he maneuvers around her to get some food from the chef. "That coffee is coming out of your paycheck, by the way," he adds, and Sharon lets out a noise of protest.

"It's not my fault! This was a two-cup situation!"

"Let it go, Sharon!"

* * *

Natasha is relentless. Apparently, football is a big deal in this town. And by apparently, Sharon means that they literally cannot talk about anything else. Sharon, for one, would love to talk about the interesting developments occurring between black hoodie boy in her Chem class and the girl that likes to throw things at him, but no. All she hears, day after day, is football. Football, football, football.

Never mind the fact that Sharon has ever actually seen a football game being played, nor does she know a single rule that goes into playing it.

"It's about the _experience_ ," Natasha tells her at lunch, where Sharon's become sort of a permanent fixture at Steve's table, the Bucky incident being completely forgotten. "You know, eating shitty concession stand food, watching the band fuck up, laughing when Steve trips over his own feet."

"I do not _trip_ ," Steve snaps, swallowing a mouthful of what Sharon thinks might be mac and cheese. Natasha raises an eyebrow at him. "It was _one time_ ," he pouts, turning towards Sharon to argue his point. "We were in eight grade, and I tripped over an uneven part of the field. She just won't _let it go_."

Sharon snorts into her can of Coke, looking towards Sam and Bucky to offer her any extra information. Bucky just shrugs, stealing a tater tot off of Nat's plate.

"It's not that bad, Sharon, really," Sam tells her when he realizes that no one else is going to speak up. "If it helps, we almost always win."

"Okay, but here's the thing: you're all _on the team_ ," Sharon stresses. "Who's going to explain things to me while I'm sitting all alone in the stands? What good is winning when I won't even know how to tell you apart from the other team?"

"Give yourself more credit," Wanda chimes in. "We'll be the only team with the name SHIELD written on our jerseys," she adds with a laugh.

"Someone really went out of their way to name this school SHIELD," Sharon grumbles, fidgeting in her seat. She takes a deep breath. "Fine." Natasha fake-gasps. "I'll go to the stupid game."

"Excellent," Nat says, rubbing her hands together diabolically. "I'll be at your house at six o'clock, sharp."

Sharon pinches the bridge of her nose.

* * *

True to her word, Nat pulls up in front of Peggy's at exactly six. Sharon bolts down the stairs, hair half pulled through a ponytail, and almost runs her aunt over.

"Careful, dear," her aunt deadpans, "wouldn't want to seem too eager."

"Don't wait up, Aunt Peggy," Sharon snarks back, "we're shooting heroin after."

"Make sure to clean your needles."

"Wouldn't dream of forgetting." Sharon slams the door closed behind her. She still hasn't forgiven her aunt for the tutoring thing, let alone the getting a job thing. Sharon's sure, each time she comes in to work, that there is no way that something weirder can happen, and yet it always does. She's also just straight up pissed that Peggy still hasn't bothered talking to Sharon about her illness. Sharon feels like she's going to explode with the knowledge.

She doesn't even want to think about the way Steve had glared at Tony while Sharon was serving him a few days ago before school. She'd tried to ask him about it at tutoring, but he had shrugged it off like he and Tony had been rivals forever.

Sharon hops into Nat's truck, flipping the sun visor down to fix her hair in the mirror while Natasha pulls out of the driveway. Natasha's silent while she drives, but Sharon doesn't mind. She's gotten so used to the constant buzz of the diner that she appreciates this break. It doesn't last long, however.

"Hey, Sharon," Nat starts, eyes flicking towards her in the passenger seat.

"Hm?"

"I just wanted to say that I thought it was awesome what you did to Rumlow back when school started. He's needed a good punch in the face as long as I can remember."

"Oh," Sharon very astutely adds to the conversation. "Thanks, I guess, but it was stupid. I have a temper."

"Still, it was pretty cool watching him get beat up by someone half his size."

"I am _not_ half his size."

"That's the way he's been telling it. You know, for dramatic effect."

"What a loser."

Nat's quiet again until they're about a minute away from the school. "So what's up with you and Tony Stark?" she asks Sharon, and Sharon shoots up in her seat.

"What?" she sputters, unable to fully understand the question. Natasha doesn't actually mean—

"Are you two banging, or something?" she asks, pulling into a spot near the football field. Nat puts the car in park and turns to face Sharon, eyebrow raised.

" _No_ ," Sharon says, as sincere as she's been about anything in her life. "Absolutely not. He's like family. I've known him basically since I was born."

"So you're not like, together or anything?" Natasha asks, and Sharon vigorously shakes her head.

"Please don't make me throw up. I'd hate to get your car dirty." Natasha laughs, taking the key out of the ignition.

"Come on, I'll help you find a seat."

* * *

The game is, in all honesty, a complete waste of time. Sharon has no idea what's going on. Mostly she just watches what everyone else is doing, cheers when they cheer, boos when they boo. It's not until after the game, when she winds up in deep conversation with Steve Rogers, that she's actually sort of glad that she came.

Natasha makes some sort of excuse about having to drive a bunch of team members home when the game ends, and of course Steve offers to drive her home. Sharon has a feeling that Natasha's reasons for offering to take her to the game weren't entirely philanthropic, but when she sees the way that the redhead is looking at Bucky when SHIELD wins, Sharon can't begrudge them their celebration.

This extra time with Steve lets her ask him some questions she's had, anyway.

The field is empty now, the band having been the last to pack up and leave, and Sharon and Steve are the only two left, perched on the bleachers. Only the bright lights are left, which Sharon turns to Steve to avoid, hating the way they hurt her eyes. She'd gotten cold about ten minutes ago, and Steve had generously given her his football jacket to wear; number thirteen. He'd explained that most people thought it was a cursed number, but that it was lucky for him.

It was cute.

"How did they even get together, anyway?" Sharon now asks Steve of Bucky and Natasha. They've apparently been together since the fifth grade, which is almost impossible for Sharon's mind to conceive of.

"Nat and Bucky have a lot more in common than you'd think," Steve starts to explain, and Sharon can't help but make a joke.

"What's that, exactly? An uncanny ability to stick their noses in other peoples' business?" Steve smiles, but it's different than she's used to.

"It's a little bit more complicated than that."

"Sounds serious."

"Um, yeah, actually." Steve shifts a bit, uncomfortable, and Sharon picks up on it.

"You don't have to tell me if it's too personal," she says, and Steve shakes his head.

"It's not really that. Everyone in town knows anyway. It's just… not the nicest thing to talk about." He takes a breath before he explains. "Neither of them really have the greatest home life. They sort of sought each other out, I guess, because of that. They… help each other. Make each other better. I think it's the best thing they've ever done."

"Wow," Sharon whispers, surprised. Neither of them seem really damaged, but maybe that's the point. Finding a healthy solution to their problems. Sharon needs to take a lesson from their book. Maybe then she'll have the guts to talk to Aunt Peggy.

"It's getting late, did you wanna…?" Steve trails off, pointing towards his car, and Sharon nods. She starts to shrug off his jacket, but he stops her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Keep it. It's cold out. You can give it back to me at tutoring."

Sharon just smiles at him in response.

* * *

Sharon honestly can't believe that such a thing as a "Spring Festival" actually exists, let alone in the beginning of February. It's not even spring yet! Aunt Peggy explains to her that it's tradition, not that that really makes any difference. Traditions can be wrong sometimes, too.

As they're walking through the town square together, Sharon sneaks a look at her aunt. She doesn't _look_ sick. But that's Alzheimer's, isn't it? Some type of silent killer? Sharon hates the fact that Peggy feels like she can't even tell her what's going on. Has she really been so awful that one of the only people she has left in the world can't even talk to her?

She catches Uncle Gabe shooting her a strange look while she's contemplating this, her gaze fixed on Aunt Peggy, and quickly looks away. Gabe links arms with his wife.

"I'm going to go… not be here," Sharon mutters in her lame attempt to escape, searching for a familiar face among the booths set up. Tony is notably absent, the grump, not that she blames him. She's really only here to make fun of it, and because she feels guilty. She really does want to say something to Peggy, but she doesn't know how to broach the subject.

Sharon just feels sick, mostly. Pissed off that she's wasted so much time feeling angry, and not enough time getting to know the person her aunt has become. She takes a deep breath, shoving her hands in her pockets, wandering around like she actually knows what she's looking for.

Something jumps in her chest when she sees a familiar shock of blonde hair, accompanied with the jacket she'd given him back a few days ago, manning the pie station. She lightly jogs over and leans against one wall of the booth.

"I didn't know these types of things happened in real life," she says by way of greeting. Steve turns to her, grinning.

"What, pie sales?"

"Funny, Rogers," Sharon responds with an eye roll. From the corner of her eye, she spots Aunt Peggy making her way over with Gabe, and panics.

"I, uh, gotta go. See you at school," she finishes lamely, darting towards Stark's and out of Peggy's eyesight. Sharon knows that she's being ridiculous, but she's not very good with confrontation, especially of the emotional kind. She's so caught up in trying to run away that she doesn't notice Steve drop his spatula and run after her.

"Sharon!" she hears his voice call the second she slips out of the back door of Stark's. Sharon sees Pepper raise an eyebrow at her, but she doesn't have time to make up a good excuse. "Sharon, come on." He slips through the door, facing her. The smell of the dumpsters behind the diner is almost overwhelming, but she's here now and she really doesn't have anywhere else to go.

Sharon's not really sure what her exact plan was, at this point, but now Steve is standing there and all she had wanted to do was run away and now she doesn't really know where to go. She tries to run further, considers crossing through Thor's backyard to make it safely home, but Steve's voice calls her back.

"Can you just—can you just _stop_? I'm so sick of you running away from me! Why can't you just, for once, face your problems?" He manages to grab hold of her arm and Sharon whirls around to face him, furious and upset and sick of running and wanting something. Just—something else, something that's not the same hurt and anger that she's been feeling for what feels like forever.

"Because it's too much, okay? Because I _like_ you!" Sharon takes a deep breath, trying to stop the tears from coming. "I like you, and I don't like _anyone_! I like you, and I like your stupid friends, and I even like your stupid town! And what happens when it all gets taken away from me again? What am I going to do when I lose it, just like I lose everything else?"

"Sharon, just because you lost your parents doesn't mean—"

"No, Steve, it _does_ mean. Everything is so fucking _temporary_." She stops fighting and he pulls her into his arms. Sharon lets herself cry into his chest, shaking with sobs. It's the first time anyone has seen her cry since the funeral. "And when it all goes away I'll have _nothing_. I have _nothing_ ," she chokes out.

"Hey," Steve whispers, rubbing her back gently, "hey. You don't have nothing, okay? You have me." But he doesn't know. He doesn't know about Aunt Peggy and she can't tell him because it's not her secret to tell.

So they just stand there, outside by the garbage bins behind Stark's, Steve gently rocking Sharon back and forth, Sharon clutching at his t-shirt, and it's not the best place or the best time but it feels like everything and that's all she needs.

"I'm so tired, Steve," she whispers when she finally pulls herself together.

"I know," he says, stroking her hair softly. "I know."

Sharon pulls away slightly to look at him. She doesn't think anyone's ever looked at her like this before, like she's not some fuck-up, a street rat, a wayward youth in need of saving. Like she's worth looking at.

She leans up on her toes to wrap her arms around his neck, and kisses him with all the enthusiasm she has inside of her. Steve lets out a surprised sound against her mouth, fisting his hands in her sweater, and responds in kind. It's not the most romantic spot for a first kiss, Sharon will admit, but she doesn't care. All she cares about is Steve's warm mouth, his hands tangled in her hair, how he's the only person who's been kind to her since she's gotten here. She pulls away from his mouth, panting, to examine the situation. Sharon's nothing if not a logical person, even when she does want to throw all caution to the wind. She plays with a button on his flannel.

"So what should we do now?" she asks him, and the side of his mouth curls up in amusement.

"Dunno," he grins. "I can't really think straight at the moment." She playfully shoves his shoulder.

"Come on, be serious."

"When am I not?"

"Steve."

"Sharon."

She lets out a large sigh, and Steve laughs, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. "I think the first thing we should do is get away from these dumpsters," he tells her, and she huffs out a small laugh. "And then I think we should make out some more." Sharon lets out a louder, bark of a laugh at that. "And then we'll go to school on Monday and see what happens, okay?"

"Yeah, okay."

* * *

It's late on Sunday night when Sharon creeps into Aunt Peggy's bedroom. Gabe is a heavy sleeper, so he doesn't notice when Sharon taps on Peggy's shoulder, stirring her from her sleep.

"Sharon?" her aunt's sleepy voice answers her, concerned and high pitched with panic. "Is everything alright?"

"Aunt Peggy," Sharon whispers, tears already streaming down her cheeks, "can we talk?" Peggy immediately responds, climbing out of bed to reach for her robe, tucking Sharon into her arm and leading them towards the living room.

"What's wrong, darling?" Peggy asks once they're situated on the couch. Sharon feels like a little girl again, scared and upset and unable to do anything about it. She hiccups a bit, launching herself at her aunt and hugging the woman as tightly as she can manage.

"I don't want you to leave me, Aunt Peggy," she whimpers, and Peggy tightens her hold on Sharon. "I heard you and Uncle Gabe talking that night. Why didn't you tell me you were sick?"

"I was selfish," Peggy tells her, and Sharon shakes her head furiously, looking up at her aunt. "No, I was. I didn't want you to treat me differently. I wanted you to sort things out on your own."

Sharon sniffles, wiping roughly at the tears staining her cheeks. "There's no cure, is there?" Peggy shakes her head somberly, her own tears starting to well up in her eyes.

"We'll just make the most of the time we have, won't we, darling?" she asks Sharon, pulling her in for another hug. Sharon nods, shaking in her aunt's arms, hating the person she'd become because of the accident.

"I'm so sorry, Aunt Peggy," she sobs, "I'm so sorry."

"Don't you worry, love, okay? Everything's going to be just fine."

* * *

"Everyone knows," Sharon hisses in Steve's ear when he picks her up for school on Monday.

He rolls his eyes at her. "They do not. Stop being so dramatic."

"Oh yeah? Last night Jane was sitting on her porch when I got home and congratulated me. We've literally been dating for two days."

"They're just excited, is all. I've never had a girlfriend before."

"Oh yeah?" Sharon leans over the gearshift, dangerously close to him, their faces less than an inch apart. "Does that make me special?" she breathes against his lips, and Steve sucks in a breath.

"I'd say so," he murmurs, moving forward to breach the gap between them. Sharon pulls away at the last second, giggling, and Steve collapses back into his seat. He grips the steering wheel tight, moving his arm to turn the car in reverse. He throws Sharon a playful glare as he turns around to check for cars behind them.

"Unfair," he mutters, but Sharon knows that he's not actually angry.

"That's what you get for forcing me to go to class."

* * *

"What do you want to do?" Steve asks her. They're on his couch, a rare moment of quiet among all of the daily annoyances of small-town life. His dad's at work, and Sharon had actually asked Aunt Peggy if she could go out, for once. They're in a better place after their talk. Both Peggy and Gabe think Steve is a good influence on her, anyway, so that's just a bonus. Sharon would be over here, regardless, but there's something good about not having to lie anymore. "After school's done, I mean," Steve adds.

He strokes Sharon's hair gently, tangling his fingers in the ends. They're laying down, Sharon rested on Steve's chest, his arms around her. It feels warm; safe. A movie plays on the TV screen in front of them, but Sharon's not paying close enough attention to figure out what it is. She's completely focused on Steve, engrossed in the way that his chest moves underneath her, the way that their breathing has synced to one another's. She's never given herself this completely to one person before. It's incredible and terrifying all at once.

"I don't know," Sharon whispers. The moment seems so fragile, like any loud noise could suddenly break it, and their peace will be over. She wants to cherish every last moment with him before he goes off to a big Ivy League school and leaves her. She doesn't want to think about that now. "I haven't thought about it in a long time, not since my parents died. It might be nice to…" She pauses, hesitating. Steve runs a hand through her hair, not pressuring her to say anything. Sharon sighs. "I don't know. It's stupid."

"Hey," he says, tiling her chin so that she can look at him. "It's you. It can't be stupid."

"I thought it would be nice to be a nurse. Maybe stop what happened to my parents from happening to someone else. And you know, be able to help Aunt Peggy." Sharon tenses up, but Steve always knows exactly what to say to get her to relax.

"Nurse Carter," he tests out, grinning. "I'd let you take care of me."

She rolls her eyes at him but smiles anyway. "Do you think I could do it?" she asks him. His opinion is one of the only ones she cares about.

"Of course you could." He rests his chin on the top of her head. "You're the smartest person I know. You could do anything."

Sharon rolls over, slowly, maneuvering herself so that she's straddling his stomach. She cups his face in her hands. "Way to dream big," she says with a laugh, never able to take herself seriously.

"Yeah, well," Steve pushes his weight onto his forearms, leaning up to brush their noses together. "Tonight I'm an optimist."

* * *

who else saw the new sharon carter footage and ascended to a higher plane of being?!  
anyway, if you're waiting for a new chapter of lsitn i'm sorry and please forgive me


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